Perspective
by StrangerThanYouDreamtIt
Summary: "Sometimes you need a new perspective, and sometimes gaining that new perspective is as simple as lying on a table and staring up at the ceiling."


**Perspective**

Extracting herself from the raucous atmosphere of the party in full swing in the bullpen, JJ climbed the seventeen steps to the catwalk. She was all for down time – god knows they needed it in their line of work – but Christmas had come at entirely the wrong time. The inordinate amount of cases they had worked in the past month ensured that instead of looking toward the team holiday celebration with relief, she'd actually found herself dreading it. Truthfully, all she wanted in this moment was her bed, but ten minutes of solitude in her office would have to suffice.

Rounding a corner towards the small corridor that held her sanctuary, her fingers sharply stunted her pace, gripped at said corner as she leant back and paid a little closer attention to the odd scene that her peripherals had caught in the conference room: Emily, laid out on her back across the round table, her eyes directed heavenward as though she was stargazing.

Perhaps she wasn't the only one who'd needed some respite, and it was a brief consideration to simply leave the older woman be – she herself wouldn't take too kindly to anyone interrupting her time to regroup. It was something they all needed, but it was also true that in the four years that she had known her, Emily hadn't done one thing that could ever be described as _odd_. That woman was the epitome of saving face. She'd been brought up in a world were appearances were everything, and whilst she'd definitely learnt to trust the team enough to be able to be herself over the years, JJ was still very certain that that didn't extend to the peculiar display that she was witnessing right now.

When she gently pushed open the door to the conference room, she half expected a wide-eyed Emily to berate her, but that wasn't what happened. No, Emily didn't move one inch, and didn't say one word - something that caused a smile to tug at JJ's lips. It told her that whilst Emily was the most guarded person she had ever known, she apparently felt comfortable enough with her to not even blink when those safeguards had been breached.

Somehow, the moment seemed too beautiful, too delicate to ruin with words, so instead of speaking, she wandered towards the table and, with minor hesitation, pushed herself up and lay down beside Emily.

Her blue eyes followed the brunette's gaze to the ceiling, and she laced her hands atop her stomach and smiled a small smile for something that seemed inexplicably intimate. There were no words, no acknowledgements that she was even there and, honestly, she had absolutely no clue what it was about the ceiling that had Emily so transfixed… But she was happy to lay there with her, in silence, studying something that arguably did not need to be studied.

It was almost ten minutes later when she finally did speak- "Whatcha seeing, Em?" –and she only made the decision to do so when she found that for every one of those minutes, the urge in her chest to know just what the older woman was thinking had grown in intensity. It was an everyday desire – to know what was going on behind those dark eyes – but this very moment only encouraged such curiosity, mostly because she couldn't help but feel that, this time, she may actually be permitted insight.

"_Everything_." Emily replied quietly, JJ's question seemingly not enough to shake her from her dazed state.

"But there's nothing there…" JJ frowned.

"Exactly." Emily smiled softly. "It's a blank canvas. Anything is possible."

Chewing at the inside of her lip, JJ tried to find her way to whatever plane Emily was currently on. The brunette's response, in all its profound glory, was incredibly cryptic, and apparently even her honorary-profiler mind was inept at decoding the riddles laced within it. Or, rather, the riddles riddled within those riddles. Why would Emily need a blank canvas? "I don't get it…"

A breathy laugh escaped Emily's lips, but she didn't move. After a moment, she decided on an elaboration and finally did move, only far enough to direct her finger towards the light fixture like she was pointing out a constellation. "You see that small mark? Beside the light?"

"Um…" JJ squinted. "Yeah, I see it."

"Well… We frequent this room every single day, and yet I only just realized tonight that it's blood."

"Eww!" JJ grimaced and scooted closer to Emily – like that would really distance her any from the apparently gruesome bloodstain. "Why would there be _blood_ on the ceiling?"

Emily chuckled, mostly for the fact that this woman - this woman who saw horrific displays of gore each and every day - was squeamish over a little blood. But she opted to keep the flaw in the blonde's reaction to herself. "I don't know why there'd be blood on the ceiling, Jayje. I'm not a blood spatter expert. But my point is simply that… sometimes you need a new perspective, and sometimes gaining that new perspective is as simple as lying on a table and staring up at the ceiling. From here, I see what I've always assumed to be paint in a new light."

Until that point, JJ's eyes hadn't shifted once, but with those words, she was helpless to the way they fell to Emily… Fell to Emily and looked upon her similarly to how the brunette was looking upon the apparently wondrous ceiling. Her lips remained parted, like her body was trying to offer words that her brain hadn't yet concocted, but when Emily shifted and rolled onto her side to face her, those words came instinctively, and in a whispered format. "What about this perspective? What do you see here?"

"I see someone who interrupted my quiet time." Emily replied with a small, fond smirk. "I see someone who is asking an awful lot of questions when she should be allowing herself to find answers."

"I like asking you questions." JJ grinned, her voice low, almost a whisper, like the whole interaction was some big secret. Really, it was. On the surface this was nothing, but wasn't it the tiniest of moments that often depicted the most colossal? "Did you find _your_ answers?"

An unreadable emotion flashed in Emily's eyes, and when she offered her response, it seemed like she was choking on the words. "I think so."

JJ remained fixed on that emotion. She was certain it was pain, derived from some form of disappointment, and she couldn't help but feel that Emily's apparent disappointment was in herself rather than an outsider. Her mind naturally retraced the brunette's steps, as far back in her history as she knew, or as far back as could be relevant, but found no clear reason for Emily's current demeanor. They'd cracked their most recent case with untypical success: managed to, when they were called in, catch the UNSUB _before_ he struck again. So it couldn't be that.

At a later date, she would struggle to place logic into what prompted the next move she made, but at the time it had been the only thing that felt logical. And, at that later date, the motivations wouldn't matter anyway - they'd be made redundant by the outcome. She'd be grateful though, that she quit searching for reason and just _did._ That she, like the whole universe was compelling her, scooted herself closer to Emily, propped herself up on her elbow and repeated a question she'd already posed. "What about now? What do you see now?"

There was that unreadable emotion again, and this time, the brunette visibly locked her jaw against whatever it was. But when she finally offered her answer, JJ could tell that it was solidly and sincerely, despite whatever had clearly just troubled her. "I see the most beautiful woman I have ever known. I see the most beautiful woman I could never call my own… No matter how many perspectives I look at her from."

A single shaky, astonished breath left JJ's lips. She felt like she'd just learnt that Santa Claus is real – or, more accurately, that she'd just been given VIP access to a world that had captivated and tempted her beyond all comprehension for longer than she'd allowed herself to admit. Of course Emily's turmoil was personal rather than professional. Of course she hadn't been able to find explanation through speculation alone. Of course she hadn't considered that maybe, just maybe, _she_ was the world that Emily had needed to see from a new perspective.

Seconds, in JJ's mind, bled into minutes, and when she snapped back to the present, she found that she'd moved again – closer, much closer to Emily. Their abdomens almost touched. Emily's scent, now more prominent, dizzied her mind, and there was only minor hesitation in her movement when she reached out for the brunette's hand. "And now?"

"And now…" Emily breathed, her eyes slipping helplessly and briefly to full, pink lips. She knew JJ must have been drinking. She wasn't for certain since she'd slipped away soon after the celebrations had begun, but it was the only explanation she could use to rationalize this moment. Still, her heart raced for the temptation in front of her, and when she spoke this time, her words weren't solid, but rather fragmented and shaky, like she was _afraid_ of them. "I see a woman who should move if she doesn't wish to find herself in a compromising position with a coworker."

To JJ, the words seemed to hold an air of resignation, like this was a battle Emily had been fighting for more than the past day or two; and her heart, oddly, soared. There were complications, so many complications. Enough complications that one year ago, when Emily had offered something just as profound as her perspective theory, she had found herself instantly dismissing the intense, enlightening feeling that it evoked within her. It had seemed far too dangerous to consciously acknowledge. But now, from this new perspective, it seemed so wonderfully simple.

And when dark eyes fluttered closed, seemingly in an equal combination of regret and fear, JJ did something she wished she could have done twelve months ago: pressed her lips to Emily's and whispered, "You are all of my answers… Answers to questions I was disallowing myself to ask."

There was a moment – a palpable, excruciating moment of truth – where Emily didn't even blink and JJ didn't dare move. But when JJ noticed an expression of relief emerge on the brunette's face; when Emily's hand shifted to the back of her neck and surprisingly gentle fingers ghosted along the soft flesh there; when smiling, crimson lips brushed almost teasingly against her own… it left her emboldened, her own hand reaching to cup at the brunette's cheek as she intensified the kiss and lost herself to world where she suddenly, with total clarity, understood the unreadable emotion she had found in Emily's eyes just minutes before.

They were in the conference room, in a federal building, and yet she felt like she was on an island, like they _were_ an island. Instinct drove her every move, like she'd been ignoring them her whole lifetime. And when she eventually pulled back, she couldn't help but suck her bottom lip between her teeth as she found herself suddenly confronted with the fact that she had indeed placed herself in a compromising position with a co-worker – and it was fucking _magical_, everything that Christmas should be made up of and then some.

"Yeah…" Emily's eyes dropped, even as a grin erupted on her face. "I should be donning such modest expressions right about now too."

"No you shouldn't…" JJ responded quietly, sincerely, her thumb tracing Emily's bottom lip. "I love your smile. You look pretty happy right now, Emily Prentiss."

"Yeah, well…" Emily smirked, her eyes fixed on the journey of her fingertip as it danced along the gold chain around JJ's neck. "I guess an interesting new perspective just opened up to me."

When Emily met her eyes again, JJ couldn't help but return her grin and gravitate towards the new possibilities and the pure sense of contentment she'd found in the brunette's kiss… But as she leaned in, her eyes caught sight of pretty much the only thing that could detour her: Morgan, his eyes as wide as his jaw, his face smooshed into the window like she and Emily were animals in a zoo exhibit.

"Oh my god…" She uttered involuntarily, her eyes fixed on Morgan, whose eyes were fixed on them, and when Emily followed her gaze, and then sharply turned back with a bark of laughter and buried her face into her chest, JJ giggled. "Apparently we're not the only ones who saw things from a different perspective tonight."


End file.
